Grease police on the case of the purloined cooking oil

The “grease police” are helping Santa Clarita Valley sheriff’s deputies catch cooking oil thieves who made off with 100 gallons of the stuff from a fast-food restaurant in Canyon Country, a spokesman for the specialized investigative unit said Tuesday.

Some time between 2 p.m. June 23 and noon June 27, thieves stole approximately 100 gallons of used cooking oil from the Carl’s Jr. restaurant on Soledad Canyon Road near Crossglade Avenue, according to deputies with the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station.

The canister can hold up to 300 gallons, the deputy wrote in his report on the incident.

A man who works for a grease recycling company phoned the Sheriff’s Station to report the crime. Deputies reported that he told them: “It’s an ongoing issue.”

Theft of cooking oil is a national “unknown crime” phenomenon, said Gary Edgington, who works for the theft investigating unit of grease recycler Dar Pro Solutions and its parent company, Darling Ingredients Inc.

“I’m with the grease police,” he told The Signal Tuesday from the site of his latest investigation in Missouri.

“This crime affects our bottom line,” Edgington said. “We lost $3.5 million last year to thefts in Southern California alone.”